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Little known wisdom

A regular reader forwarded the opinion piece about efficiency that is shown below. It seemed relevant after my sad account of an unnamed person delaying and inconveniencing my important technical efforts, in the middle of complex electronics repairs, simply because that person thought bits and pieces, screws and screwdrivers, disks and drives ought not to be stored for days on the largest horizontal surface in the family dining area.

Sensitive to matters of proficiency, regular reader also knows the secret of effective work is to keep needed resources close at hand. In my career’s work, I was a piler, with a very organized hierarchical structure of piles. The importance of a document was signified by its position in the vertical axis of a particular pile. That which was atop the most urgent stack always got immediate attention. Similar to granular convection, old, less significant items of business work their way to the bottom while large ones rise to the top. Eventually, documents that stay near the bottom can be discarded without ever having been given direct attention. In fact, papers worthy of being ignored completely always found the bottom without even minimal handling.

I intend to someday publish a book about my document storage system. Right now, I’m missing the third and seventh chapters. They’re here somewhere though because I never lose anything important, permanently.

Wasting money on destructive energy projects makes zero sense when there are better alternatives. British Columbia is spending billions on Site C. It could suspend the project today and have less harmful and cheaper sources of clean power operational by the time more electricity is needed.

As is typical of resource management, the regulating ministry sees its prime purpose is to enhance growth and profitability of companies extracting resources. the public share of produced values is no longer material. This cozy relationship costs taxpayers billions of dollars, money that could be spent on renewable energy, transit, daycare, education or many […]

Canada’s Conservatives are committed to the Republican Party value of opposing voter fraud, if someone else is doing it. Like their American mentors, HarperCons protest electoral manipulations even more strongly when no one is doing it. Bill C-76 amends the Canada Elections Act to establish spending limits for third parties and political parties before of a […]

Freelance reporter Bob Mackin wrote that BC’s Legislature was a scandal waiting to happen and he quoted journalism professor and former Legislative reporter Sean Holman about the significant potential for abuse. Mackin blames excessive secrecy and lack of transparency...

BC Hydro's quarterly report for the period ended September 30, 2018 shows the utility is very good at some things. Specifically, borrowing and spending money. In the thirteen years from 2005, assets employed to service BC consumers have almost tripled in value. Trouble is, actual sales to residential, commercial and industrial consumers are less in 2018 […]

The case is clear. British Columbia's Government decided to reduce the public share of natural gas revenues to almost nothing. This is despite substantial growth in the quantities of natural gas being extracted.

Perhaps an even more vile set of falsehoods is BC Hydro's continuing claims that demand for electricity by its BC consumers has been growing steadily. That has led to excessive capital spending that measures in the billions.

Check out the fine work on electoral reform by Merv Adey 2018 fellowship recipient Andrew Seal. It’s a fabulous five part series published by The Tyee. We’d like to raise additional funds to initiate the next fellowship. You can be sure it will support a comprehensive examination of a subject important to all British Columbians.